00:00Rod Roach never got to say goodbye to his older brother Peter. Two years ago the
00:09dementia patient walked out of the Rockhampton Hospital never to be seen
00:13again. Unbelievable really because he was a bit of a wanderer and he was still
00:19able to get out. The 80 year old had been in hospital for two months when he left
00:24the ward while staff were responding to an emergency. He wasn't reported missing
00:30for hours. An air, water and land search was launched but his body was never found.
00:35There's no closure, not at all. After walking through town he headed east and
00:41was last seen crossing a bridge in Rockhampton's rural outskirts. The
00:47central coroner has now ruled he died from dehydration saying very likely he
00:52would have succumbed within a short period of time after he was last seen
00:56alive. The tragedy has prompted the hospital to roll out airlocks and
01:01automatically locking doors on certain wards. Not only are we focusing on
01:05infrastructure but also our assessment processes, diversional therapists that
01:10support these type of patients. Yet it hasn't prevented similar cases. Margaret
01:16Carville went missing from the Rockhampton Hospital emergency department a year ago
01:20and this year Edward Camille wandered outside Gladstone Hospital after
01:24surgery. Both short-stay patients had Alzheimer's and were eventually found
01:30unharmed. The context of the other two patients are completely different
01:35environments. We look at the more generic lessons learned from these moments in
01:39time. A hospital is not a prison so we cannot lock the hospital down. Dementia Australia
01:45warns the problem is a national one and partly stems from the lack of aged care
01:50beds. It says hospitals are not designed for patients with a cognitive impairment
01:55to stay long term. It recommends quiet spaces in hospitals for patients to
02:01regroup, closely monitoring food and drink intake to prevent things like urinary
02:06tract infections and more staff training. Simple introductions and explaining what
02:11you're there to do can not only help familiarise the person with who you are and
02:16what you're doing but also ground them in the environment that they're in.
02:20While any change is too late for his brother, Rod Roach wants increased hospital
02:25security in the hope others won't experience his pain. I don't want anyone to
02:34go through a loved one walking out of a hospital and never be seen again. It's not a good feeling.
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